Rosemary and Rue | The Winter of Our Discontent
My eyes feel so heavy now… maybe I should just close my eyes for a little while.
Surely, he'll hear the messages I left.
Perhaps… perhaps everything will actually be okay when he comes home.
When the husband finally returned nine days later, the house was frigidly still. The ringing silence was the first thing to hit him, followed by the sweet rot of a life left to curdle in the dark.
The house was in a state of violent disarray.
Kitchen cabinets stood gaping open, some of the pantry goods knocked over and spilled inside. Others had tumbled onto the kitchen floor, left right where they fell.
The fridge door hung wide. Its light burnt out, sickly shadow sitting within.
A thick stench of spoiled milk and rotting vegetables assaulted his senses, so heavy he could practically taste it in his mouth.
He pushed the curtain aside to crank open the window, trying to air out the space, but the air stayed thick and unmoving.
The mail lay scattered across the floor, envelopes ripped open and their contents shredded into a mess that littered the room.
On the windowsill, the violets had turned into brittle skeletons in their posture of defeat.
The cats didn't meow anymore; forming part of the stillness alongside the dust.
One was curled next to an empty bowl with dried food caked to the sides, a victim of slow starvation. The other lay lifeless next to the tub, where his wife was; who would never wake up again.
He stood over the tub, peering through the water at her. The winter chill held her body in place. Such eerie stillness.
Perfectly preserved, just like a cold, hard marble statue. Life had fled her long ago, leaving only an empty shell anchored to this tub by the crushing neglect of his abandonment.
If only he had picked up her call…
He kneeled on the cold floor. The full, bitter realization of his undoing finally crashed down on him.
It wasn't just the silent treatment.
It was the undeserved, passive-aggressive rage he directed at her, paired with the way he kept pushing her away for no good reason.
It was everything he did that drained the light out of her.
The weight of his own jealousy and arrogance was burying both of them in the wreckage; it was a murder-suicide of the soul, and the house had become a tomb.
He was no longer her husband. He didn't deserve to be called one for what he did - he had his part in this tragedy. There was blood on his hands.
He was supposed to be her scaffolding of support, yet all the while, he was pulling it away, piece by piece. This was the most unkindest cut of all - much like yanking the rug from beneath her - she was left to drown in his cruelty.
He made his bed, and now he would have to lie in it. The body counts didn't include his. He was the lucky devil who survived, left to live like the living dead in the aftermath inside this breathing tomb of his own making.
That time of year thou mayst in me behold, when yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang.
©Britt H.
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